The pool with the cinderblock walls

The pool with the cinderblock walls was in the back yard of the house on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles's Hollywood Hills that served from the mid-60s to 1973 as Lyric International's studio; as the home of Lyric's owner, Billy Byars, Jr.; as the residence of some of the Lyric Boys; and as permanent or temporary temporary housing for Lyric collaborators. The products in Lyric's catalog, including magazines, films and photo sets, feature extensive nudity by the Lyric boys and other boys and young men, and many were shot in the pool and the house. The house "was for a while a haven for adult homosexuals and male teenagers."

Spectacular backdrop

The house at the summit of the Hollywood Hills has views west and south to Los Angeles and the Pacific and north to the San Fernando Valley. At least two Lyric films, Swim Party and Spring Break, featuring Peter Glawson and others of the Lyric boys, mostly in the nude, were filmed around the pool with the cinderblock walls. Swim Party had panoramic shots of the views that made it possible to identify the location.Not only the backyard but the house's interior served as a backdrop for photos. The living room, a "bachelor pad [which] boasts massive oaken beams and other touches of baronial elegance" [Viola Hegyi Swisher, "Generating "The Genesis Children", After Dark, September 1972, p. 18] appeared in Lyric's magazines with nude boys around its pool table.

The Lyric portfolio did not include pornography, but its offerings were distributed through DOM/Lyric, a collaboration with Guy Strait, who did however produce pornography including child pornography, and lived only a few miles from the Lyric studio. There's no indication Strait filmed at home: police claimed a film made in a hotel led them to him in 1973,(needs source) and in his 1976 arrest the appellate court said, "the defendant came to the Holiday Inn in Rockford, Illinois, in March of 1972, to shoot a pornographic movie"

Home to the Lyric Boys

Many of the Lyric Boys, who appeared in The Genesis Children and in Lyric's photographs and shorts filmed at the pool and elsewhere, lived at the house, and were under legal custody of Byars as foster children.[Interview with Aikman, 2006, by Ballog]

The house was also home to Byars's pet snake, which was allowed free roam of the house, and a Beddington Terrier dog, which can be seen in many Lyric photo shoots and short films shot at the pool location.[Interview with Aikman, 2006, by Ballog]

One of Billy's only rules at the house was that if you wanted to swim in the pool you had to swim naked. On one occasion, the dog got loose and everyone started to run naked down the road to try to catch him. The group was almost run over by a shocked elderly couple turning the corner of the road in their large automobile.[Interview with Aikman, 2006, by Ballog]

On one occasion the LA County Department of Child Service notified Byars that they would be coming by the house the next day for an inspection/visitation. Byars and friends scurried to town to buy books, tables and a portable blackboard. By the time the Child Service officials came by the next day, Byars had set up an outdoor classroom complete with Vincent Child, black cape and all, acting as the boys teacher. Byars received rave reviews by the impressed county officials.[Interview with Aikman, 2006, by Ballog]

Varied houseguests

When Anthony Aikman, director of The Genesis Children, came to Los Angeles to edit the film, he stayed at the house on Mulholland Drive. Aikman found a strange man named Teeterman there. Teeterman slept in a coffin in the lower level of the house and had a job at the Hollywood Wax Museum where he dressed up in a costume and played the Mechanical Man while standing outside the museum to attract customers. Teeterman once showed Aikman an old 8mm film of himself, dressed in a vampire's costume, and Billy Byars trolling through a cemetery late at night. The cemetery was supposedly located out in the Midwest. [Interview with Aikman, 2006, by Ballog]

Vincent Child, the adult actor in The Genesis Children, stayed at the house for a while on completion of the film. William Johnson, Byars´s factorum, may have been a permanent resident.[Interview with Aikman, 2006, by Ballog]

The house today

The house today and several of its neighbors make up "The Hills Treatment Center", listed in Psychology Today as a place which "offers a fantastic educational and therapeutic drug and alcohol rehabilitation experience." Previously it was Wonderland Treatment Center. The "massive oaken beams" have been painted an inoffensive white, the pool deck has been tiled, and other indignities have been inflicted on the architect's work.

The house as real estate

The house is in Los Angeles, California in the Hollywood Hills between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. More specifically, it is at 8181 and 8207 Mulholland Drive just west of Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The place is latitude 34°7'21.85" N (34.122736), longitude 118°22'37.35" W (-118.377042).

Billy Byars, Jr. let people believe he owned the house but he actually rented it from the owner.

Zillow.com tracks real estate values on a house-to-house basis, and a decade ago listed the house as a duplex, divided as 8181 and 8207 Mulholland Drive. 8181 is described as two bedrooms, one bath, five rooms total, 767 square feet of construction and 13,070 square feet (0.3 acres) of land. 8207 is four bedrooms, three baths, 2,624 square feet, on 19,600 sq ft (0.45 acres) of land. The total would be 3,391 square feet, with six bedrooms and four baths, on a three-quarter acre lot. In January, 2020, Zillow does not show 8181 and lists 8207 as being 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and 1,857 sq ft, which is inconsistent with aerial photographs which show no substantial change in the house. Zillow claims the house was built in 1961.

Related places

Lyric's activities were not confined to the pool with the cinderblock walls. When arrested in the 1973 scandal, Lyric partner and pornographer Guy Strait lived 2.4 miles away by road, at 7718 Skyhill Drive, Studio City. That is currently assessed as having 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 2,786 sq ft, and having been built in 1960 but having an "effective year" of 1965, which suggests it may have been expanded since Guy Strait lived there. Lyric had an office at the Crossroads of the World complex in Hollywood, 4.2 miles away down Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. The Gold Cup, famed "chicken" hangout, was only 3.2 miles away, down Laurel Canyon and Hollywood Boulevard. From Strait's house to the Gold Cup is only 3.9 miles straight down US 101.

External links

• Bird's eye view on Microsoft Bing Maps
• Aerial photograph on Google Maps
• 3D reconstruction by Sneeuwbol Adobe Atmosphere software is long unsupported.
• 8207 Mulholland Drive listing at Los Angeles Count Assessor's Office
• 1971 aerial photo (28.1 MB) at UC Santa Barbara Library. Flight TG_2755, Frame 23-15. nb: North is to the left, not the top.